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I haven’t tried it yet but supposedly Bookshop.org partners with indie bookstores.
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Jun 23, 2021 15:39
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Amarcarts posted:I've noticed in recent years there are a lot of websites using little recent sales popups. You'll be trying to look for stuff and down in the lower left hand corner it will repeatedly flash and disappear. (e.g. "Steve in Texas purchased a green vibrator"). Some of these sales may be real but I was googling how to turn these off without luck (anybody know?) and some of the top results were how to add fake ones to your website to boost real sales. The brute force solution is to get the noscript extension for your browser of choice and set it so everything is blocked by default. Works pretty well, there’s a button for temporarily whitelisting a site for when I need to make a purchase or whatever. You’ll probably want to permanently whitelist a couple of the things you use most often. I... doubt those messages are ever real? Seems like an awful lot of work when posting fake messages has the same effect.
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Jun 29, 2021 12:06
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Now that every website with a decent amount of traffic is getting bought up by conglomerates, I see a lot of “cross-promotion of affiliate content” which they pinky swear isn’t advertising because it’s all owned by the same company  Especially funny when the affiliate is actually a website whose sole function is to post Amazon links for a commission on click throughs. It’s still not advertising! techically Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Jun 30, 2021 |
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Jun 30, 2021 18:21
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99% sure she googled/mistyped the support website or phone number that was shown on the screen. If she bought it off a reseller on Amazon or something similar, there’s a possibility that they mailed a “tech support” pamphlet together with the package. I suppose it’s feasible that they could have hosed with the printer itself but that’s a lot of effort when it’s already relatively easy to scam folks with a sus website and a free screen-sharing app.
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Sep 4, 2021 17:03
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I think a few of the most talented sales people do actually make quite a lot of money but that’s because their job is entirely different. They get hired to promote MLM schemes on a temporary basis and their job is not to sell product but rather run a bunch of barnstorming conferences and promo videos to recruit as many new suckers as possible. Then they move on to the next MLM to do the same. I heard an interview with one of these guys in a podcast about noted scam OneCoin. The impressive part was the dude clearly didn’t understand what OneCoin was, nor did he care. He was still able to get a ton of people to fall for the con.
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Sep 16, 2021 04:40
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There’s no spam calls here in Denmark. EU regulations work. Modernized infrastructure probably also helps, but this is by and large a result of regulations, because cell companies are the ones responsible for cell towers etc. E: should be noted that there are very rare (like once a year) scam calls. These are targeted calls, usually hitting the elderly. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Mar 15, 2022 |
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Mar 15, 2022 08:02
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Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:EU regulations have the same power overseas that american regulations do - none at all. there aren't enough danish speakers worldwide to be worth trying to internationally scam the danes. drat near everyone speaks some english though Huh, I guess I hadn't considered folks think we don't speak english. For the record, the percentage of Danes who speak english is somewhere north of 85%. Those who don't are mostly pensioners.
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Mar 15, 2022 16:40
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Yeah, they are the only ones being targeted, but thankfully phone scams are quite rare. Now, fraud via e-mail on the other hand...
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Mar 15, 2022 18:10
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Xenoborg posted:Are the roofing companies that come around a whole neighborhood after storms a scam? One showed up today that I'm considering. They say they'll do a free inspection, and then talk to my insurance and if they agree its storm damage, off we go. I have an old roof that needed replacement in the next few years anyway, so it seems like worst case insurance says they wont pay for a new one and I'm in the same place I was. The roofers pitching today look like a decent and longstanding outfit, and even if insurance does agree to replace I wouldn't necessarily need to use them. Is this just how roofers get work, or is there some other facet to this like trying to upsell? Google ‘roofing stormchasers’ and you’ll find a ton of horror stories. Those outfits will usually roll into a town for a couple days and knock on a bunch of doors to line up work. Best case scenario, once it’s done (hastily and on the cheap) they’ll leave town and you won’t be able to contact them. Sometimes they submit a larger invoice to the insurance company than they show you, in which case the homeowner is often the one held responsible for committing insurance fraud. Or they ask for a sizable downpayment and leave without doing any work. Check to see if their company is based close to you. If not, that’s a warning sign right there. E: another thing to watch out for is if they mention federal programs that offer subsidized loans. Those loans are basically a mortgage on your property and you’ll lose it if you can’t pay the monthly costs. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Apr 20, 2022 |
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Apr 20, 2022 01:29
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Mister Kingdom posted:I've gotten several calls wanting to sell me solar panels because they reviewed my house and say that I am in the perfect place for them. https://www.salon.com/2020/05/09/a-major-player-in-solar-energy-leaves-some-customers-seething_partner/ The other big player is Sunrun and there are a bunch of smaller companies as well. The daily show did a whole segment on the industry but I can't find it, sadly. E: woops, wrong show. This is very thread appropriate Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv8ZPFOxJEc
Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Apr 20, 2022 |
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Apr 20, 2022 02:02
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Sounds like a great opportunity to pitch your plan for timeshares in a seaside property
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Jun 3, 2022 19:12
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In my experience the places that have tablets or QR code menus are usually tourist traps and hotel/airport restaurants. Which makes sense, they got hit the hardest by the labour shortage and some of them have a ton of outdoor seating that can't be covered without a small army of wait staff. They also don't really care about return customers so long as they don't get dinged on Yelp for having slow service. As of 5 years ago when I was in the service industry, the pre-built solutions for digital menus were expensive AF. It took some special circumstances to make them viable. I don't mind them in principle but its usually a sign that the establishment has an enormous menu and isn't exactly fine dining. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Jul 4, 2022 |
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Jul 4, 2022 16:56
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Institutions and apartment complexes will usually have an arrangement with a locksmithing company, find out who they use.
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Aug 8, 2022 01:18
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namlosh posted:I’m on mobile so I can’t quote quotes very easily… but am I to understand that these scammers are somehow able to change google’s streetview data???? Not streetview, just the bog-standard google maps that people use on their phones. And yeah, all the businesses and points of interest in google maps are added by users, owners or google's own data-mining. It works the same way for iOS maps and probably all the other apps. Want your business to show up on people's phones? Fill out an online form for Google/Apple/whatever. Want to advertise a fake front for a business that doesn't exist? Exactly the same procedure.
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Aug 8, 2022 19:25
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Amazing how many different versions of this con exist. I mentioned a similiar grift earlier in the thread where they place bowls of nuts/olives or salad on the tables at restaurants. Touch it and you get an extra 50 euro (or thereabouts) surcharge for the item. The common theme here is that tourist districts are the worst and even the totally honest establishments serve mediocre food that has been marked up massively. There's nothing to lose if the customer is only going to be there for a week at max. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Aug 27, 2022 |
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Aug 27, 2022 09:55
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I have some family who worked in China for years, and they all said it was an amazing place but they absolutely needed a local friend or fixer to find out where to go and not get ripped off. Or just some years’ experience and language skills The place is just too drat big and different, despite foreigners being greeted with a ton of curiosity and enthusiasm.
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Aug 28, 2022 09:53
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My experience of it was in Prague on a college school trip. The tour guide parked us at a restaurant and was pretty explicit about not touching the stuff because we were a flock of 19-year-old dumbasses. Sure enough, the menu had a couple appetizers priced equally to the entrees. But yeah, a little bread or olives on the table isn’t uncommon in Spain or Portugal from what I’ve seen. Central Prague was a pretty predatory place- it’s probably not an issue for areas that aren’t heavily touristed.
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Aug 31, 2022 22:01
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CC holds like that sound insane to me but maybe that's a North American thing. Here if you're charged, it's because you paid for it. Businesses can charge fees for booking services that they then deduct from the final bill, but that's about it.
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Sep 4, 2022 20:21
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SIHappiness posted:Yeah, I should've been clearer: I've met many people who prefer debit cards because they fear the concept of running up a balance too large to pay in a month and incurring interest charges. For them, the act of charging $50 and then immediately paying $50 feels more comfortable than the equivalent act of charging $500 over 10 charges and then paying it the following month, and ultimately they're safer doing this than 10 debit charges. That was sort of what I was going after with that comment - you're absolutely correct that moving past that, there's an even bigger benefit to be had from the 30-55 day delay in payment. Yeah, a debit card is sometimes used as a scorched earth solution for folks who have spending issues, gambling addiction or similiar. It isn't perfect (and one can also get a CC card with built-in spending limits) but it works. Also good as a kid's first card.
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Sep 6, 2022 07:12
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I have no issue admitting that I was an even dumber teenager and would have gotten myself into financial trouble if I had the opportunity Although it might have helped if my parents taught me that poo poo
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Sep 6, 2022 12:34
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Whoever starts those things is probably mostly interested in getting people to post their addresses and other PII, not getting a boatload of pet toys.
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Dec 11, 2022 22:21
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Easychair Bootson posted:They're just betting that credit card usage is so ubiquitous now that it's an easy way to recoup those fees. I think overhead from transaction fees is usually rolled into the menu price. It’s actually unusual that they adjust for people paying with cash. Desert Bus posted:The lady that kept emailing me who was getting scammed stopped awhile ago. I just did some Googling, and scammer killed her via taking away her medication money. That’s heartbreaking 
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Jan 22, 2023 22:54
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That family is comically evil, it’s weird
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Mar 6, 2023 22:45
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Discendo Vox posted:It really seems like Google should require additional steps or info to set up such an account. So many companies don't bother to put any thought into their fraud prevention and messaging. Technically not a scam, but when I last created a Paypal account, a week later I got a text from "Paypal" saying that my transaction limit had been raised to 4000 bucks. Of course I had done no such thing, so I immediately called my bank and reported fraud, ordered a new credit card and shut down my Paypal account. Turns out this is something Paypal does automatically and they just communicate it in the most suspicious way possible. 
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Mar 12, 2023 11:26
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I wouldn't do it for the aforementioned reasons, but in principle I think companies should always pay us for the privilege of recording our personal information. So they are doing one thing right.
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Aug 17, 2023 17:24
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Zero One posted:https://kfor.com/news/local/apache-police-now-investigating-teen-who-posed-as-physician-assistant-more-alleged-victims/ I have to admit I respect the hustle. Would probably have made the same or better money if he just went into finance and did the legal sort of white collar crime.
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Aug 18, 2023 19:28
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Some country-specific Red Cross organizations are pretty decent. I think the ARC and to some extent the IFRC are uniquely bad.
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Oct 2, 2023 07:33
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It's a really lovely job. Most of them are misadvertised so the people being hired don't know what they are getting into. Apparently in Singapore, a new tactic has been to recruit workers from overseas, advertising it as an entry level IT job and requiring an expensive upfront commission. The immigrants arrive having blown their money and are stuck there since they never get a proper work visa.
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Nov 10, 2023 13:26
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It’s always funny when folks fall for this sort of scam but I think a lot of the time, they are terribly lonely people who are vulnerable to the right approach at the right time. Or senile or otherwise disadvantaged to some degree. All that said, folks who blithely click through security training and consequently fall for dumb cons out of willful ignorance need to get their poo poo sorted out
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Nov 28, 2023 12:22
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SonOfGhostDad posted:Not a scam, per se, but one of the things I'm fascinated by recently is money laundering through virtual currencies like WoW gold and CoD skins. Do we have a money laundering ask/tell? It’s mostly done in games that allow trading on 3rd party sites - harder to track and more pop up every time one is shuttered. Items are often posted with ludicrous prices to make sure the money doesn’t end up in somebody else’s hands. Steam has been used for laundering for quite a few years now. If you sell something at a price far above its average selling point, you might get an automated message saying the funds have been put on hold. It doesn’t help that they provide an API for third-party sites to use the marketplace. Amusingly there’s also a small industry of low effort games priced at 200$ and above. Just another way to whitewash currency. I think the practice is probably a lot more widespread than publishers and platforms acknowledge. They take a cut of the proceeds, after all. E: my pet theory is that the reason Star Citizen posts higher “pledges” every single year is money laundering via selling ships. It’s nuts that the spending has consistently increased every single year. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Nov 30, 2023 |
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Nov 30, 2023 20:12
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ilmucche posted:Counterstrike skins are apparently used for this Yeah, Valve made a lot of noise about cracking down on CSGO skin trading after attracting unwelcome attention from law enforcement in 2019. They closed several hundred accounts and authorities shut down a couple trading sites. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Dec 1, 2023 |
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Dec 1, 2023 07:34
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Booking.com has some pretty serious internal issues at the moment. They also have stopped passing on payments to a lot of hotels: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/01/booking-com-hotel-fees-unpaid-millions-technical-issue With that and the email hack, it’s best to avoid using their service for the time being. Reports of scammers sending mails from their domain containing customers’ private info have been occurring for years now: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/mysterious-leak-of-booking-com-reservation-data-is-being-used-to-scam-customers/ Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Dec 1, 2023 |
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Dec 1, 2023 07:44
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PDFs are weird and can contain javascript so yeah. Probably depends on what you open it with.
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Dec 15, 2023 23:03
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Wow, that's a whole rainbow of scams. Check fraud, bogus prestige certifications and uh, some incel rear end in a top hat harassing therapists?
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Feb 7, 2024 12:19
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I’ve bitched before about PayPal texting me out of the blue, informing me that my transaction limit had been removed. Of course I instantly called the bank to ensure that no transactions had gone through and block the associated card. Turns out PayPal does this automatically and communicates it in the most suspicious way possible lol I still shut down my account because brain dead communication like that is hard to distinguish from fraud or a scam, things which have to be acted on immediately. Moral of the story is that the signal to noise ratio is such that it’s easy for scams to slip through because so much legitimate information is communicated in a sketchy way.
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Feb 19, 2024 06:12
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If you are aware that you absolutely can be tricked by a scam, even if you have an understanding of how it works, then you are in the correct mindset to hopefully avoid it. If you are totally confident that you know the warning signs for a given type of scam and are immune to it, then you're setting yourself up for trouble if targeted by a con that deviates from how you expect it to proceed or catches you off guard on the worst day of your life. Which, yeah, that's a perfect example of hubris in action More generally, I think saying 'drat, this could also get me on a bad day' or not crapping overly much on folks for falling for stupid cons (ok, maybe a little because its' funny sometimes ) is helpful for others who may not have that mindset, or are too ashamed of their own experiences to share what scam they fell for and how it happened. Want to encourage folks to educate others
Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Feb 21, 2024 |
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Feb 21, 2024 20:39
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Filipinos marrying folks abroad is also something that happens quite often. Like it’s a bit of a cliche in my country. Not sure I’d call that a scam exactly, the couples I’ve seen were happy, even if their reasons for marrying were a little different.
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Feb 27, 2024 07:16
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teen witch posted:Horse Girl Swish Card has been going on for at least a few months now, though I’ve never sent twice in one night…yet. I’ve sent him other ones but it’s predominantly Horse Girl Swish Card. This reminds me of a friend who decided to send requests for 20$ to everyone on his contact list late one night. Got a cool 100 back! I guess this is technically a con as well
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Apr 2, 2024 15:18
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I know a couple folks who cashed out but they are pretty quiet about it. Feels like the folks who talk a lot about their crypto earnings also have it all tied up in yet more crypto or some other side-hustle
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May 7, 2024 00:28
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